


Misery Loves Company

by RewriteTheRules



Series: Subterfuge [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Broken Mycroft, Brotherly Love, Gen, Mycroft didn't know Sherlock's plan, Mycroft thinks Sherlock is dead, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Post-Reichenbach, Reunion, Sherlock surprises Mycroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-05-19 22:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14882373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RewriteTheRules/pseuds/RewriteTheRules
Summary: Isn’t it unfair, Mycroft thinks, that one still has to be a big brother even when there’s nobody left to look after?In which Mycroft did not know about Sherlock's plan to fake his own death, and has spent eighteen months blaming himself for his brother's apparent suicide. Drowning his misery in whiskey, the last thing he expects is for a familiar consulting detective to break into his house.Part 3 of the Subterfuge series, but can make sense if read alone.





	1. Reminiscence

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Sorry it's been so long, I was diagnosed with mono and the last thing I felt like doing was writing. But I've finally started to feel up to it, and what better way to celebrate than by dolling out the long-awaited Mycroft chapter! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it :) This installation will have two chapters, so be on the lookout for the next one!

_Sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side._

_Everybody dies. It’s is the one thing human beings can be relied upon to do, how can it still come as a surprise to people?_

_I miscalculated._

_I’ve missed something._

_Why didn’t you tell me?_

Mycroft nurses his glass of whiskey and stares blankly ahead. In the background, he can hear the laughter of his little brother coming from the film he’s played over and over since the night began. Old family footage, some holiday or other, before it all went wrong. 

_When did it go wrong?_

When Sherlock was born, Mycroft had to adjust. His place in the family had changed, like it or not, and now he was responsible for someone other than himself. Through every tantrum, every scraped knee, every insult, every drug den, Mycroft was there for his brother. Even as they grew, and the chasms between them seemed to stretch on for eternity, Mycroft would not abandon Sherlock. He could be in charge of the whole of the British government, and according to some people that was, in fact, the case, but the only thing worth giving a damn about was the child he’d practically spent his own adolescence raising.

Piss poor job he did, too. While he may have sharpened Sherlock’s intellect to somewhat match his own, those abilities had come at a price. Bloodied noses after school, when Sherlock thought it would be terribly clever to show off in front of the football team. A string of failed friendships, if they could even be called that. Pouting after telephone calls because all the other children wanted were answers for their assignments, and eventually, Sherlock just stopped picking up. His brother was a genius, one of the great minds of England, but without constant stimulation, that mind tended to scratch itself raw.

Mycroft should have helped Sherlock cope. Maybe then he wouldn’t have turned to drugs.

Back alleys at three o’clock in the morning, drug dens that were collapsing in on themselves, more than one overdose. People who wondered why Mycroft didn’t enjoy ‘legwork’ anymore didn’t know that he’d spent almost a decade parading around the streets of London calling his brother’s name, and he didn’t think he could do it again without succumbing to a heart attack.

Mycroft smirks at himself bitterly and takes another drink. No need to worry about that anymore, of course.

_Isn’t it unfair,_ Mycroft thinks, _that one still has to be a big brother even when there’s nobody left to look after?_

Sherlock’s death does not strip Mycroft of his responsibilities in the matter. In fact, the circumstances surrounding his death only add to them. He couldn’t save his brother, and he has to live with that.

“Mike!”

Mycroft looks up, forgetting for a moment that the film is still playing. He’s slipping. The voice belongs to his mother, why would she be at his home at this hour?

“Mike!” Mummy repeats, voice chipper and exuberant. “Come and see what your brother is doing!”

He hears himself grumble a half-hearted reply. “Mycroft, mum, my name is Mycroft!”

Mycroft shakes his head and tips the glass back. He reaches for the remote control, knowing what comes next, but when his eyes catch on a curly mop of hair, he’s frozen. How old was Sherlock, then? Six? Seven?

He’s smiling like Mycroft hasn’t seen in years, but his dimples are indented against the corners of his lips like they’d never left. He’s dangling over the edge of some enclosure at the zoo, pointing excitedly at a tiger who’s hard at work ripping up a large chunk of meat. “Myc, look! You were right, their teeth do rip through the tendons like candied jellies!” 

“Mycroft Holmes!” The camera pans down to a wrapper of gum on the sidewalk while his mother chastises him. “What on earth have you been telling your brother?”

But Mycroft doesn’t answer, and he remembers very well why. In fact, he can hear the harsh whisper of his own voice demanding, “Sherlock, get down from there! You’re going to get yourself killed!” 

Sherlock’s indignant huff is recognizable. The same one Mycroft swears he heard only the other day. 

The same one he hasn’t heard in eighteen months. 

He pours another glass of whiskey. It’s more than a glass.

He downs it. He still feels empty. 

_This petty feud between us is simply childish. People will suffer._

_I will suffer, I am suffering, and you’re dead._

_All hearts are broken. All lives end. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock._

_I should have told you,_ he thinks, ignoring the prickling sensation in his eyes and the throbbing vein in his forehead. _I should have told you that your loss would break my heart._

Something shatters. At first, Mycroft wonders if he’s dropped his glass, but it’s still clutched in his hand, painfully tightly. There’s a strange sweeping noise against what he imagines are tiles. Kitchen or bathroom, then. Given the proximity of the kitchen to the study where he has secluded himself, he goes with that.

_Balance of probability, little brother._

Odd, he suddenly thinks. Anthea should have left hours ago.

In fact, what time is it?

Mycroft groans and sets the glass down on a pile of books along the back shelf of the room. His muscles creak in protest, but he takes it slowly. For one thing, the alcohol has dulled his senses, and for another, if someone was out to kill him, he would already be dead. 

The sounds grow louder as he nears the grand oak doors that will lead to the kitchen. There’s a hurried energy, shards of glass clicking against each other and undoubtedly scratching up his floor. Muttered curses. Light footsteps. 

The knob turns without Mycroft’s permission. And then he’s frozen. He wonders if it is his muscles that have stopped working, or his brain.

Sherlock grins sheepishly among the broken bits of china. He's dirty and sweaty and what in God's name is he wearing? But, as though no time has passed at all, he murmurs, "Ah. Hello, brother mine."


	2. Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft remembers what the months without his brother were like. Sherlock, it seems, has no idea what he's done to the people he loves most.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for being so patient, friends! Health issues kept me from posting this earlier, but luckily, everything is moving in the right direction and I'm pretty much back to normal! What this will mean for you is more frequent updates and, hopefully, the conclusion of the Subterfuge series and the beginning of the next one :) Thank you again and I hope the chapter was worth the wait! 
> 
> **Side note: This chapter contains heavy angst, and scenes involving dealing with the loss of a loved one.

After Sherlock's suicide, Mycroft wished things could go back to the way they were. 

After all, he reminded himself, he still had his career. He had so much to occupy his mind that surely he could keep himself busy. He would never forget Sherlock, and he knew that there would always be a part of his life that was missing, but that was natural. Normal, even. The first time in his life that he would be like everyone else. He would grieve, he would accept it, and he would move on. 

Mycroft quickly realized how deluded that was.

His brother was all he could think about. The first meeting he went to after the suicide lasted ten minutes before his guests were escorted out and he broke down crying behind his desk. An ambassador had asked about the broken nose and he was finished.

But nothing compared to preparing for the funeral. 

Because that meant he would have to see John again. 

Mycroft tried to be sensitive. He went to see the doctor before he went to see the director of the funeral home. He let himself into the flat on Baker Street and wasn't in the door more than a minute before John tried to clock him again.

Thankfully, Mycroft's reflexes were not dulled by shock this time, and he easily side-stepped the attempt. "Dr. Watson, please -"

"Get out." 

John didn't yell. But there was a madness in his eyes that led Mycroft to believe this quiet anger was worse. "I wanted to discuss the arrangements -"

"Get out of our home." 

Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose before a sharp pain reminded him that it was still broken. "You should be part of this, John. He would want you -"

John clawed at his hair and let out something between a sob and a laugh. "No, no, no. You don't get to speak for him, Mycroft! Not after you went and blabbed to that psychopath!" 

Mycroft drew himself up to his full height - his only defense. "I had no idea -"

"Doesn't matter now," John mumbled, and he spun on his heel half-heartedly before collapsing in Sherlock's chair. "Doesn't matter now." 

The blood in Mycroft's veins ran ice cold. He quirked an eyebrow as nonchalantly as he could. Probe, he decided. Sherlock would never forgive him - even from beyond the grave - if he let John walk a path of self-destruction. "Oh?" he hummed. "And what does that mean, Dr. Watson?" 

John blinked up at him like he'd spoken another language. Disbelief pooled in his eyes. "What does that mean?" he repeated. "It means he's dead, Mycroft! And it doesn't matter whose fault it is or who convinced him there was no way out! It doesn't -" He cut himself off with a choked gurgle. "He's gone..." And it was like he was realizing it all over again. 

Mycroft went to lean his umbrella against the doorframe before he realized he hadn't brought it. The usual drone of the furnace was drowned out completely by John's gut-wrenching cries. A friend would have offered comfort, would have pulled him close or said something kind. But Mycroft didn't go in for that sort of thing, at least not with John Watson, so he did what any good Englishman would do. 

He went to make a cup of tea. 

He put on the kettle and went after the milk, but upon opening the fridge, realized that it was empty but for margarine and a tin of - oh God, he wasn't sure he wanted to know what those were. "I'll send someone to the shops," he murmured. "You're out of milk." 

He didn't understand why John's sobs became more ragged, but when he turned around to face him again, he found the younger man hunched over, nose to knees, dripping and red and hurting. Something about the sight of this broken human being tugged at the heartstrings that should have been in Mycroft's chest and suddenly, everything in that godforsaken flat was just completely and utterly Sherlock. In the manner the teacup was placed on the end table. In the careless way his door was left open, bed unmade. In the headphones on the antlers, in the bullet holes in the wall. Christ, it even smelled like him. By the time his eyes fell on the violin case, he was already shaking.

The kettle boiled over and then so did Mycroft. 

For a moment, John forgot to be angry and Mycroft forgot to be pompous. He realized that, in lieu of his brother, Dr. Watson was the closest thing he would ever have to Sherlock Holmes again. And that knowledge, the finality of death and the responsibility of its circumstances, destroyed him. He fell to his knees at John's side and sobbed brokenly into his days-old jumper. The doctor stiffened beneath him, every muscle rigid, and then someone cut the strings which had been holding him upright and they became something of a ragged heap, all snot and tears. John's fingers tangled in Mycroft's hair, his left hand trembling uncontrollably and a strangled grunt emerging from his chest every few moments. For his part, Mycroft knew something was horribly, horribly wrong. He prided himself on his sense of control in all things, but now, every inch of him felt swollen. Like one wrong move and he would burst. He didn't do this - he didn't do feelings. He didn't cry, he couldn't remember the last time he broke down like this. But every time he thought he'd evened his breathing and slowed his heart rate, he remembered that Sherlock wasn't coming home and it would start all over again. 

That was the first and last time John Watson and Mycroft Holmes cried in front of each other. They never spoke of it again, even at the funeral, when Mycroft played the part of stoic older-brother and John the steadfast soldier. Even when Lestrade had to excuse himself and Mrs. Holmes's tears overflowed onto her little boy's casket, Mycroft and John were strong. 

They were the ones hurting the most, and they were the ones who - behind closed doors - ached and cried for the world's only consulting detective. John might have gone back to hating Mycroft after that day, and he wasn't shy about saying so, but Mycroft had a sense of responsibility for the man now. So when John's limp came back and he lost his job at the surgery a few months later, he told himself that checking up on him was only natural. After all, he still had to be a big brother even though Sherlock was dead. If there was no one to care for anymore, why shouldn't John Watson reap the benefits of his sentiment?

***

Mycroft, still frozen in the doorway, just stares at Sherlock while a million possibilities scroll across his mind like a computer screen. 

_The first possibility,_ he thinks, _is that I've gone mad._

Improbable. Though his emotional walls have deteriorated significantly since losing his little brother, the odds that he would only now be experiencing vivid hallucinations of this nature are unlikely.

So if Sherlock is not a hallucination, then he must be alive. 

Sherlock is alive. 

Sherlock leaves the dustpan on the floor and stretches, raising one dark eyebrow in the process. "Uh - Mycroft?"

His voice. That is Sherlock's voice, that is his brother's voice. How is this his brother?

A growing look of worry shadows Sherlock's features. "Myc?"

The dam breaks, and for a moment Mycroft thinks he might punch Sherlock right in the nose, right where John Watson got him eighteen months ago, but the instant he steps forward, he throws his arms around his brother and finally breathes. For the first time in an age, he properly breathes and it feels so damn good. It doesn't matter that Sherlock is too shocked to move, that he feels more like a statue than a person in his embrace. This is his brother. His brother. 

"What's wrong with you?" Sherlock doesn't seem to know whether he should be annoyed or concerned so he tries for a tone that conveys both. Suddenly, Mycroft's face snaps up and anger boils beneath his skin.

"Is this some kind of game to you?" he spits. "You were dead, Sherlock! What the hell were you thinking?" 

To Mycroft's shock, Sherlock laughs at him. "You're serious?" he asks. "You've had eighteen months and you haven't worked that out yet?" 

He would love nothing more than to make a string of complicated deductions, to explain in great detail how his little brother faked his own suicide. He would come up with a litany of statistics and impressive conclusions, but none of it matters anymore. They're just words. Utterly meaningless with no one there to share in it. He can't read Sherlock right now. Oh, later he'll be able to figure out where he's been, given the state of his clothes and hair and the new patterns of scars, but at this moment, all he can see are the silvery-blue of Sherlock's eyes and how thin he's gotten and when was the last time he ate and dear God when had he become their mother?

"Eighteen months," Mycroft repeats. "Of...grieving," he hisses the word like it's an expletive. "I miscalculated." 

"Clearly." 

It's quiet for a moment. Mycroft has collected himself to the best of his abilities and straightens. "Come," he offers. "Have a drink. To your...homecoming. You'll be telling me everything, Sherlock Holmes, or so help me God -"

"Not a social call," Sherlock mumbles. Mycroft freezes.

"Pardon?"

"My work isn't done," Sherlock says. "There's one piece of the puzzle left before I can come home. Really come home, that is." 

"And that would be?"

Sherlock swallows hard. Mycroft watches his Adam's apple bob in his throat, where bruises have formed from an obvious attempted strangulation. "I need your access," he admits. "And your protection. I can't go to Serbia alone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It was hard writing a more emotional Mycroft, since that is more or less out of character, but I really enjoyed experimenting with this new side of him. Let me know what you thought! I'll see you for the next installment very soon ;) Lots of love! <3


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